


Phases

by bearden2000



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-11-22 13:49:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearden2000/pseuds/bearden2000
Summary: “Don’t think of it so much as a fall, but rather as an opportunity to learn how to fly.” – Dread Emperor Venal, in the act of succeeding his predecessor (A Practical Guide to Evil)Though darkness brings its pains and emptiness, it is also the chance to start anew, to once again fight to be full of light.





	Phases

Even now, well on the other side of the most hectic year in Michiru's life, the King of the Land of the Moon still found it difficult at times to bear the heavy weight of that title and crown. Cumbersome not just from its gravity but because it was thrown into the middle of a balancing act that Michiru had not so much kept up so much as ignored whilst panically watching his life slowly fall into broken shards.  
  
  
Perhaps this is why he had something of an affinity for circuses: jugglers performing maneuvers at which he, green with envy, could only marvel; trapeze artists somehow maintaining balance despite performing death-defying acrobatics at heights nearly as perilous as his own; clowns ringed by flashing lights and full of bright eye-catching colors and cheerful mannerisms, so much so that no one (for fleeting moments not even the clowns themselves) thought to look beneath the mask of makeup spread paper thin.  
  
  
He would be the first to admit that he had not taken Amayo divorcing him well at all. A ballooning body that even she didn't recognize was merely the most obvious sign. As racked with guilt as he still was about feeling so, he was relieved when his father sent him on a tour of the Elemental Nations. There were diplomatic relations that could be created and built upon by such a trip of course. And access to foreign ideas, technologies, and techniques was invaluable to a nation as relatively isolated as the Land of the Moon. But Michiru believed to be something else entirely. (In this, he wasn't technically wrong. _Why hadn't his father told him?!_)  
  
  
The fact of the matter was that Michiru did little else but wallow in self pity and guilt. Statecraft took time certainly but as merely the heir apparent most of those duties went to his father. What bits and bobs did fall to him were things he had done most of his life and could complete all but in his sleep. Not at all fitting enough distractions to help him pull out of his depression. It was not as if he hadn't tried to get back on the proverbial horse. If not for him then for Hikaru who should not have to lose his father so soon on the heels of all but losing his mother. But he could not get over Amayo leaving anymore than he could swim across the sea to her. A long trek across all the wonders of the Elemental Nations, being able to spend quality time with his son the majority of the way, was just the sort of thing/ that might kick start his journey to recovery, to having some control over his emotions and his life again.  
  
  
Maybe it was fitting that she involved in control slipping out of his waning grasp. Everything with her had been an exhilarating whirlwind that he could do naught but ride to its destination. From meeting the beautiful foreign born girl who had no truck with such nonsense like paying him deference or any special attention or respect to him just because of his parentage. To the utter delight of finding that the woman underneath such beauty and strength may well be the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. And having those thoughts confirmed with the wonderful and miraculous surprise of little Hikaru. He would become a bundle of joy in and of himself, of course, but he was also a physical testament to the love they shared.  
  
  
The wedding was thrown together fairly quickly for appearances sake and was pretty informal for royal standards, but that didn't matter to Michiru one whit. They could have been in the most expensive over-done and ostentatious ceremony to every grace the Elemental Nations for all he cared as long as Amayo was the woman who was standing beside him and vowing to stay there forever.  
  
  
In retrospect, even back then there had been signs of the sort of conflict Michuru had been struggling with for the past couple years: the wants of the person versus the needs of the position they held.  
  
  
He had naively thought that Amayo had seemed a little uncomfortable during moments of the ceremony because it had been so last minute and not living up to the standards royal weddings usually have. He had even offered to buy whatever it was she wanted to bring things up to snuff. It seemed rather obvious now that the woman who hadn't grown up with this monarchy and had shown little especial fondness of it was instead discomfited with the pomp and circumstance in formality that _had_ been crammed into the almost slapdash affair.  
  
  
Looking back, Michiru could only cringe at how many times he had made that exact sort of mistake of perception and tried to rectify it in precisely the same manner. He still covered his face in his hands when remembering a particular dinner when Hikaru was still a toddler. Amayo had commented on not having enough time during the day to both watch and take care of their son and also go through the crash course of statecraft she had been slogging through the past few years. Not necessarily the most enjoyable of tasks but an absolute necessity for the woman who would eventually be the Queen of the Land of the Moon. Michiru had worked with his father to pare it down as much as possible, but the reality was that even then they were trying to pass on multiple lifetime's worth of lessons as quickly as possible.  
  
  
Michiru's suggestion of having more full time minders for Hikaru, so that she could devote her time to the latter task fully, was not received particularly well. Amayo seemed to think of it as him saying that spending time with their child wasn't important. Or, at best, not as important as politics.  
  
  
Kami knows that was the last thing he had meant to convey! Were it at all feasible he himself would have spent every waking moment with their darling boy. The fact of the matter was that the need of future monarch of the Land of the Moon to be able to effectively run his own country out weighed Michiru Tsuki's personal wish to spend the afternoon playing with his son. And the same held true for the current Princess of the Land of the Moon, at least temporarily.  
  
  
While it was true that should, heaven forbid, something happen to him Amayo would be Queen Regent until Hikaru came of age, that wasn't really what they were training her for. At least not so soon. It would not do to push her directly into the deep end. But there are certain issues that arise when a foreign born woman arrives, seduces the Prince of the land seemingly instantaneously, and gets pregnant so quickly that they have to rush a wedding to hold it before the birth. Inaccurate though they were, rumors about her intentionally getting pregnant in order to live the high life of royalty were all but inevitable. Michuru had certainly dealt with enough those sorts of folks (after either riches or political power) to recognize that Amayo was anything but that.  
  
  
Such rumor mongering is not impossible to put down, if not exactly the most enjoyable thing to combat. The issue was that it required political maneuvering over a long period of time. Maneuvering that Amayo would have had to commit while learning how to do it in the first place. Instead, she reacted by starting to reject all the trappings of wealth and politics that she could get away with. Seeing attending galas as somehow proving rumors right rather than prime opportunities to push back against said rumors. Believing charitable auctions to be our family flaunting what we have in front of those less fortunate instead of a politically expedient method of all but giving away our riches while not forcing those receiving it to feel as if they were worthless or did not earn what we gave them. An offer to help her push through political lessons as quickly as possible and get the one we lacked the most, time with our son, instead taken as valuing politics over our son.  
  
  
This rejection of unavoidable facets of the lives they as the future King and Queen of the Land of the Moon would have to lead eventually culminated in her eschewing him altogether. Even when he had absolutely embarrassed himself in his unannounced visit to her door, the divide and almost willful ignorance she made in that arena was still. Michiru had no intention of keeping Amayo away from her son any more than he had any intention of keeping Hikaru away from his mother. And he could sympathize with her wanting to move closer to home, out of the country headed by the family she divorced away from.  
  
  
But just as he was not merely Michiru Tsuki, Hikaru wasn't just their son. He was the second in line, now heir apparent, to the throne of the Land of the Moon. In fact, given neither he, his son, or his father had any siblings, he was the _only_ heir to that title. Under such circumstances, there was no way it could be countenanced that the lone heir of a nation would live in a foreign country. Especially living so far away from members of the royal family. Had they tried such a scenario, even ignoring the issues of, among other things, training Hikaru to run a country he didn't live in, the large guard that would have followed him across the ocean would have rendered the point of having him live alone with his mother almost moot.  
  
  
What had happened after that conversation drove home the necessity of that guard rather forcefully. 

* * *

Once the dust had settled that terrible night, after the Leaf shinobi had gone home and Hikaru and been put down to bed for what promised to be the first of many fitful nights of bad dreams, Michiru started to slowly untangle his emotions. Because what was rising to the forefront wasn't the grief at his father's death, though that promised to come soon, heavily and often. It wasn't the fear and anxiety of suddenly being the head of a nation, though that ever present friend would creep up in the coming days.  
  
  
He found himself in the unenviable position of being angry at his late father. Angry at him for being late, for dying. For passing not only in front of him but more importantly in front of Hikaru, For making his son watch his grandfather die and see his father break down in tears as it happened. But most of all for knowing. For knowing _ and not telling him. _ His father had sent him and his son on this trip for the express purpose of stopping this coup. And he hadn't deigned to tell his son, his heir, that any of this was happening. That his death was in any way a possibility.  
  
  
In fact, the last words Michiru had from his father weren't the pleas on his deathbed but a letter left on Michiru's bedside table. His father had known he might not make it and left what was all but a last will and testament. A private confiding of all his hopes and dreams, successes and failures, the sort of message that can only be passed on King to King. A letter in which he had the _ audacity _ to try to comfort him with the thought that "There is perhaps one light to glimpse in this dark chapter, my son. Assuming the coup succeeds and you are reading this after retaking the throne, I will have given you the greatest gift one ruler can give another: a widely reviled predecessor."  
  
  
That, Michiru had mused, was precisely the problem. The man who followed a dictator that killed a widely beloved king was given quite a bit of leeway in what they could do. When that dictator killed the widely beloved king for trying to help out the poorest of the poor? Michiru could convince the people of the Land of the Moon to accept just about anything as long as he phrased it right. Some things would perhaps not require rephrasing at all, like the execution of Shabadaba for treason against the crown.  
  
  
Putting that order to paper, to action, was as strong a temptation as Michiru had ever felt in his life, hopefully as strong as he would ever feel. Michiru the man wanted justice, vengeance for his deceased father, and his poor guards who also fell in the violence. And the future king of the Land of the Moon noted that it would set a terrible precedent for himself if he allowed coups and assassinations of kings to go without severe punishment. It would quite literally not be a long lived precedent.  
  
  
But he couldn't quite commit to doing so. Something balked at taking that retribution. It was only rediscovering a quote from an ancestor 4 generations up the line that he found why he couldn't approve such action.

  
"A man must always avoid confusing striking out at evil men and doing good deeds. If they do, they risk their good becoming merely the act of striking."  
  
  
For all that it might feel good, feel right, striking at and hurt Shabadaba as recompense for the hurt he caused others, it wouldn't actually fix anything. It wouldn't...it wouldn’t bring his father back. More importantly, this would be Michiru's first act in his reign. It would set the tone for years, decades to come. He had to do what was best for the future, not just what felt good in the moment. It was that future-bent focus that he brought into the speech he gave at the funeral-cum-coronation held at the next new moon.  
  
  
_It is said that everyone is a moon and has a dark side that they never show anybody. Here, in the darkness of the moon itself, and the darkness of these most recent days let me show you the side of me you seldom see. ___  
__  
  
_Tonight, I do not just speak to you as the King of the Land of the Moon, navigating our nation through the darkest and most troubling time in our history. I speak to you as a Prince, thrust under a crown and on a throne before I feel completely prepared for either. Finding them both too tight, constrictive, and heavy to bear and too wide and voluminous for me to fill. I speak to you as a son, mourning the loss of a father. I speak to you as a father, mourning a son who has lost his grandfather and a grandfather who will never get to see the wonderful man his grandson will become. But most of all, I speak to you as Michiru Tsuki. A bare and blunt honesty that is both the most I can give and the least you deserve.___  
__  
  
_A fair amount of you are probably wondering why Shabadaba still lives, even if imprisoned for the rest of that life. Surely if you were mourning your father or son, you would rectify that wrong, right? Seek an equal punishment to be inflicted on the one who committed such a heinous act? Seeking some sort of fairness in the end of it all, not because it makes it all better but because the alternative of letting it go unpunished is unthinkable? Doing what you can to get justice for your fallen loved one?___  
__  
  
_Justice isn't something to be found at the end of a journey, in the final chapter of a story. It isn't a treasure to be hoarded, or a gem to be prized and gazed upon in times of comfort. Justice is a struggle, from when we are first born to when we breathe our last. Because we cannot be just, we can only act justly. ___  
__  
  
_To compare justice to the primal need for revenge that one may feel toward those that wrong us cheapens it beyond measure. And the focus on the death that has been blinds us to the immortality that we can still grasp. For though we are born once, from that birth we face two deaths. The first in the body, but the second in the thoughts and memories of those that we live behind.___  
__  
  
_And indeed, is it not true that throughout this entire day, we have heard friends of King Kakeru taking advantage of the rare opportunity to sing his praises without him being able to hush them up before they can get going? Before they could succeed in getting that oh so rare blush to grace his cheeks?___  
__  
  
_I know for a fact that that is exactly the sort of legacy he would want. A king fondly remembered for what he did, not forlornly grieved for what he did not get to do. His last…his last words were to ask me to make this a place where people can be happy. So please join me and help make that happen. Use the present to reminisce about the joys of the past and to build the happiness of the future.___  
  
  
I will do all I can to make his last request come true, but just as the moon can only be as bright as the light it reflects, so too the good I can do can only be a reflection of what the people of our great nation can accomplish when they work together.

* * *

For all that the initial seed of the idea had spawned in a personal indulgence, taking another step to make his father's dream come true was why he was now here in the Land of Rain to see the premiere of The Tale of the Gutsy Ninja. Not as a fan, as he had with the Princess Fūn movies, but as its main financier.  
  
  
As with most other aspects of his life, getting that situation to happen became much more complicated after becoming King. He was no longer simply a really rich (if politically important) private citizen funding a director that made films he had previously enjoyed. He was not a head of state bankrolling a film. This brought up extra concerns of course, but along with those concerns came new opportunities. 

  
Instead of merely throwing a bunch of money at the project, Michiru wrote to the director, Makino, and offered to host the filming of the movie on the island nation that he called home. From Makino's point of view, that was just as good if not better than a mere pile of cash. (Though Michiru had been fairly generous with the breaks give to the production company in regards to tariffs and the like.) Logistically, successfully deciding on and creating a home base from which to create projects was a headache in and of itself. Better yet, the Land of the Moon had a glut of people looking for work and willing to help out on a large project like a movie production. Even if it was just behind the scenes grunt work relative to the on camera stars who might actually gain fame from such a project.  
  
  
Michiru almost could not believe how fortuitous his timing had been in making the offer. Given that Makino had just wrapped up the long standing Princess Fūn series, it was a near certainty that almost all of the people employed during that run had their contracts end after the filming of the last installation of that story. And an astonishingly large number of them took the opportunity to find work elsewhere. Part of them most certainly wished to spread their wings and work away from the shadow that Yukie Fujikaze, among others, naturally cast. Indeed Yukie, pardon him _ Koyuki _ , herself retired and became the Daimyo of the Land of Snow (He made a mental note to write to her some time. As a fellow leader of an isolated nation who was forced to take the throne after a coup killed her father, they should be able to find common ground as people as well as heads of nations.)  
  
  
All those former employees finding greener pastures meant there was an opportunity for his own citizens to find work. To be frank, that was half the reason Michiru made the offer in the first place. The Kakeru Memorial Social Security Fund Michiru had founded (seeded with one hundred percent of the money and assets formerly owned by Shabadaba) was doing great work in helping out those in the most dire straits survive and slowly recover. An unequivocal good act in and of itself and also helping to safeguard his throne. After all, it was relative poverty that enabled Shabadaba's coup in the first place. The missing nin may have carried out the ultimate act, but Shabadaba was only able to hire local manpower at all because for far too many it was the difference between their kids having food on the table or going hungry for the night. Hearing their testimony, Michiru could not countenance giving them the same harsh penalties he gave the man they had served.  
  
  
All that being said, in his multi-month journey across the various lands Michiru had found that almost as important to people as fiscal security was purpose.  
  
  
In some respects, even the greatest of the Elemental Nations were woefully behind what was being created on their little isle. Even something as relatively simple as the handheld video game machine that Hikaru owned had been just as mind blowing and incomprehensible to almost everyone he came across as marshalling and fighting with the elements was to pretty much anyone that was not a ninja. It was all but useless for Michiru to dive into anything more complicated than that, even with his fellow leaders of nations.  
  
  
And yet, on the whole, people were happy. Not that life to say that life was perfect everywhere, or quite frankly anywhere on the continent. Sadness and tragedy struck as often there as they struck anywhere else in the world. Yet even after being shown a glimpse of what they were missing, those on the lowest rung still were probably just as if not happy in the Elemental Nations than they would be if they had been born in his home.  
  
  
Because for all the horrors that war brought, for all the accusations of injustice, corruption and all the rest that might be laid at the feet of any of the Kage, those Kage and those horrors molded each nation into the identity that they still held to this day. There was something of a survivor's bias at work in that any area too conflicting or disparate to have a central identity had probably ended up taken over long ago.  
  
  
While there were plenty of local conflicts that could be pointed to in the history books, the fact was that the Land of Moon's isolation meant it missed most of that formation of identity. It had a reputation as a very rich place, an island paradise that was the perfect place for a vacation if you could afford it. But a national identity that its citizens could get behind? That was a little lacking.  
  
  
But a project as large as the production of a movie could help change that, help bring people together. A movie that, by its very nature, would show off their homeland in its best light. Not only to the people who lived their, to take renewed pride in old favorites, but show it off all across the world so that all could know of the majesty of their home. That it was a movie that wrestled with hard issues that had no answers, like the nature of peace or justice, issues that the country itself struggled with, was still struggling with, made it seem like the perfect fit.  
  
  
And to Michiru's delight, that was exactly what had happened. People pitching in together in the service of a common goal. The large roll of ninja guards and background actors going from those mysterious people that are like the people who killed King Kakeru, to the friendly temporary neighbors who always made sure to frequent the local shops and restaurants. Things weren't all magically wonderful, not by a long shot, but as he greeted the sunny day, he couldn't help but be optimistic.  
  
  
"What auspicious weather," he exclaimed, grin earnestly wide, "Surely this is a sign that today will be a good one!"  
  
  
The ninja guarding him(the girl who gave him back his kingdom and her teammates; after all she had done, all she and her twin had given up, how could he _ not _ request her?) gave polite, if not quite convincing enough to be diplomatic, "I definitely want to be here" smiles and followed him into the crowd.  
  
  
Michiru supposed that was a fair reaction. He rather doubted that training to be a ninja, dedicated to stealth and being unseen, included anything like how to deal with celebrity or being well known. Even though this was a completely separate movie from the Princess Fūn movies, it was clear a sizable portion of the people there were familiar with Makino's previous work. And as such were familiar with the absolutely wonderful debuts to the silver screen that all three of them, though especially Sasuke and Shikako, had made.  
  
  
(In the safe sanctuary of his own mind, Michiru would admit he was a little disappointed that he hadn't heard more singing from Shikako. Not that he would ever be so uncouth to request it, but hiring her as a guard seemed much like buying a nightingale in order to have it hunt insects.)  
  
  
They slowly worked their way through the mass of people, Michiru enjoying the rather rare pleasure of the people around him being asked after more than himself. As they eventually neared the front door they came across a pleasant surprise. The head of the Land of Rain was here with an entourage of his own!  
  
  
Michiru rather hoped that he liked the movie. Given that his nation was hosting the premiere, a favorable review from them would only encourage others to see it. But more so, he hoped so because he saw something of a kindred spirit. The Land of Rain was also a small nation coming out of recent turmoil, still struggling for an identity after the surprising death of Hanzo. The film wouldn’t give him any easy answers, because no such answers existed, but perhaps it would reassure him that he wasn't alone in that struggle.  
  
  
After a polite nod, he paused to let the Rain entourage in front of him before following behind. It wouldn't do to be rude in someone else's home. Besides, even in his own home his part to play wasn't to lead the charge forward into the unknown. In this their namesakes had proven to be more prophetic than any soothsayer.  
  
  
His father, Kakeru, had given all that he had to the Land of the Moon. Gave as his light waned and dimmed until it eventually faded out into darkness.  
  
  
He, Michiru, had the task of taking what his father had made and build it up again to even greater heights. Bigger and brighter so that-  
  
  
His son, Hikaru, could shine with the full brightness that both his father and grandfather had given him. Leading their home into a future that promised to be more brilliant than any of them could imagine.  



End file.
